Monday, July 20, 2009

Drum'n Bass It

The chief economics editor of The Telegraph continues his one-man crusade to encourage the masses to get more appreciation for electronic music. After having failed to seduce his readers with a promise of massive liquid nitrogen cannons capable of cooling down the dancefloor in a split second, Edmund Conway complains about the readers lack of cooperation and tries another trick.

But listening to these records on youtube is no substitution for feeling the impact of the sub-bass - that chunkiest of all burrs which you can only feel when standing next to six-foot high speakers in a club - as a drum and bass tune strikes the dancefloor.

The comments section remained silent and unimpressed. One just can't help feeling that as Edmund's desperation keeps growing, he will soon start encouraging his readers to pill themselves up before trying to listen to the YouTube's clips generously embedded all over Edmund's Electronica series.

This reminds me of a similar mission undertaken by John Digweed a few years ago during his tour of the Far East. John Digweed appeared before crowds claiming that music actually saves lives, and electronic music can save even more lives, and rhetorically asking his audiences what life could be without music. Unlike Edmund, however, Digweed's efforts met with a remarkable success confirming his status as one of the world's leading proponents of electronic music. At one point Digweed called on his audience to thank God for bestowing music on humanity, transforming the hall into a huge mosque as thousands of Chinese have got down onto all four in a Muslim like prayer (some witnesses reported that they have actually found much of the audience already on the floor right at the beginning of the event). Here are a few highlights from that memorable lecture John Digweed presented in Hong Kong.

PS

This post is an update to Introducing the Dancesaurus. If you have any comments, leave them there. Some readers may also want to check this post which also deals with various issues related to dinosaurs.